Jamie Raskin is an American attorney and politician who has been a member of the United States House of Representatives from Maryland's 8th congressional district since 2017. He was previously an active Democrat in the Maryland State Senate. He served in the state legislature from 2007 to 2016 and represented a portion of Montgomery County, a residential county northwest of Washington, D.C., and rural Frederick County up to the Pennsylvania state line.
His father, Marcus Raskin, was a former staff aide to President John F. Kennedy on the National Security Council and co-founder of the Institute for Policy Studies, as well as an activist for progressive causes. His mother, Barbara (nee Bellman) Raskin, was a journalist and novelist.
He is the author of several books including The Humane Interface (2000), which focused on the human-computer interaction with technology. He has also co-authored The Case for Medicinal Marijuana (2014), which argues that legalization of marijuana could alleviate the suffering of patients with serious ailments.
Raskin earned a Bachelor of Arts in government from Georgetown Day School and a J.D. from Harvard College, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.
Before he joined Congress, he taught constitutional law at American University Washington College of Law. He co-founded and directed the LL.M. program in law and government and co-founded the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project, a nonpartisan project that educates students about the United States Constitution.
